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British Science (And a Screaming Zero) in Cartoon, 1865

JF Ptak Science Books Post 1728

This fine cartoon appeared in the 23 September 1865 issue (page 114) of the London Punch magazine, poking a little fun at the recent meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which had just finished its 35th meeting in Birmingham. Its attendees and contributors read like a "who's who" of the heights of mid-19th century British sciences (across fields of geology, physics, physiology, chemistry, mathematics, statistics (and economics)): attending and contributing were JC Adams, Airy, Hooker, Thomas Graham, Wheatstone, Nasmyth, Fairbairn, Murchison, Lyell, Huxley, Thomson, Maxwell, Tyndall and of course numerous others (also including foreign members).

Of the figures I can identify in this image are Thomas Huxley and the not-beautiful Richard Owen at top left, discussing the principles of evolution in front of a small audience of skeletal/fossilized monkeys, and standing to their immediate right waving an instrument over chemical elements may be JAR Newlands. I am not sure who is presiding over the numerals at bottom left, but what attracts me the most is the zero is running away, screaming, from the other numbers seated calmly on tiny stools. Seated serenely at center juggling earth/spheres in the geologist Roderick Murchison, who appears prominently in the Punch report--I'm less sure about the two other geologists (one placing the Earth-chunk back into the globe, and the other placing a short-handled shovel into another globe, both in front of an audience of geologist's hammers...are they Charles Lyell and John Phillips?) Above them may be John Tyndall, working with an optical viewer in front of an audience of dividers and a telescope. And above the maybe-Tyndall is a steam hammer demonstrating itself to a set of jackknives and cutlery.

The text is pretty interesting in itself, not the least of which is another visit to the squaring of the circle (having just written about this two days ago), which goes like this:

"A few words on Squaring a Beadle who was arguing in a vicious circle. Illustrated pugilistically. (A portmanteau to itself, including gloves and change of linen."

I should be able to idenbtify these men though I'm afraid I can't; perhaps I'll have a little help with them.

Notes (including the contents of the volume published in 1866 of this Birmingham 1865 meeting):

Comments

I love this image, and used it in my book. I think the one with the numbers can be identified as JJ Thomson and the one holding up a piece of the Earth is Charles Lyell. The elderly man with tartan trousers, demonstrating his invention of the stereoscope, is David Brewster. I hadn't identified the chemist before, so thanks for the suggestion.

Thank you! I think you're right on the Brewster, and also for Lyell. Thomson though was born in 1856--I ws thinking about JJ Sylvester for the numbers guy, but I don't understand the significance of the (very Asian) fish he is holding up or why the zero is running away in the first place.

Very hard to tell from a cartoon but Babbage was 74 and, really, doesn't appear to look like that in the pictures I've seen. Was he at the meeting? He's listed in the report as a member and former member of Council, but not as giving a talk.

Sylvester - all the pictures I've seen have him with a beard. Might he have been as pictured in 1865? His talk was on probability. There is a quote from Sylvester to do with fish (and oratory):
"An eloquent mathematician must, from the nature of things, ever remain as rare a phenomenon as a talking fish, and it is certain that the more anyone gives himself up to the study of oratorial effect, the less he will find himself in a fit state of mind to mathematicize."
Although I think this is quoted from a commencement address at Johns Hopkins in 1877:http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/?pa=historicalEvent&sa=browseFrontEnd&month=1&day=22

Thanks Peter Rowlett for that response. I doubt that the amth person can be Sylvester of Babbage as well. But it must be somebody, as these sorts of things in Punch do reference living people. I just don't know enough faces to have but half of these make sense.